Finding the Sweetness. (Patreon)

Hello loves.

Greetings from a contemplative Amanda, who is plotting out the fall but still stumbling from touring and trying to drink gracefully from the firehose of thoughts. Impossible.

More coming tomorrow, but for those who are out there celebrating Rosh Hashanah…happy new year.

I was lucky enough tonight to be randomly enveloped by a huge extended family, the challah was ripped, the apples and the honey were sweet, and I played “Pink Pony Club” in its entirety on the house piano with a 3 year old banging along with me as the whole room of 25, ages 0 through 80, clapped and sang and laugh.

This is, I daresay, what life is really about, and what my job as a musician is when all is said and done. I got to bring some joy to a room full of people.

I’ve only been coming to understand some of these Jewish rituals in the last five years, since some friends in New Zealand and beyond started adopting me into the occasional high holiday, and I feel lucky, always, to be invited in.

Rosh Hashanah is, among other things, about appreciating the sweetness.

It’s been a bitter bitter handful of years for people all over the globe. I’m thinking of all the suffering so many have endured in my own community, and outwards, all over the world. Ukraine. Gaza. The endless school shootings. The endless overdoses. The suicides. The covid deaths. The pinball of ache and recovery only to be whacked in the knees when trying to stand. There is so much exhaustion.

There is also hope, there really is, and if you don’t have any, I’ll try to break some off and give it to you.

I have seen people close to me losing hope in the last year. We are all caught in a net, it seems, and taking turns flailing.

But the hope rips through, often. There are people the world over dedicated to fighting fascism, there are artists trying aginst all odds to pull paintings and songs out of their chests, there are children dancing to the beat, vocal boxes breaking free and raging against the escalators. It can feel glacial, the pace, I know. I know so well. It’s so horrible, waiting for things to feel good when things just feel so bad.

There are these little moments to savor.

May you all, my friends, with all I know that you are carrying, may you all find the sweetness, whatever it is, and however you can wrestle it out of the hungry jaws of darkness.

Shanah Tovah.

More tomorrow, I’m going to collapse in a sugar coma.

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